Crowdsourcing the search for extraterrestrial life

In December 2011, astrobiologist Paul Davies and research technician Robert Wagner published a scientific paper calling for the public’s help to search for traces of extraterrestrial life on the moon. Now the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute is calling on the public for help as well.

The SETI Institute announced the launch of SETI Live at the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in Los Angeles. According to Space.com, anyone can register on this website and assist in the search for extraterrestrial radio signals by analyzing data received by SETI’s Allen Telescope Array in California.

Dr Jillian Tarter, director of the SETI Institute’s Center for SETI Research and winner of the TED Prize in 2009, explained, “I’m hoping that an army of volunteers can help us deal with these crowded frequency bands that confuse our machines. By doing this in real time, we will have an opportunity to follow up immediately on what our volunteers discover.”

The BBC points out that crowdsourcing data “has proved to be a very useful tool for scientists in a range of disciplines,” so it makes sense to utilize crowdsourcing in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence as well.

About Jason McClellan

Jason McClellan is a UFO journalist and the producer/co-host of the web series Spacing Out! He is also the web content manager and staff writer for OpenMinds.tv, and a co-organizer and technical producer of the International UFO Congress. As a founding member of Open Minds, Jason served as a writer and editor for the now defunct Open Minds magazine. He has appeared on Syfy, NatGeo, and, most recently, he co-starred on H2's Hangar 1: The UFO Files.
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